Spark

just to touch on what pretty much the last 10 or so posts has been saying, im still having lots of problems with spark "colliding" with terrain and not even casting, but costing the mana and going through the animations. its frustrating as there are times, like when walking over a wooden suspension bridge, that if you cast while walking downhill, it casts, but the moment you cross to the uphill half, it just fails to go off. the new scourge mechanic adds an extremely difficult layer on top of it, as its already dark, then adds tons of obstacles in the terrain. i cant count how many times ive been running around wondering why my spark isnt going off, but its because theres a small rock in front of me. it is also possible to stand against a wall, and cast, then turn the character so youre 80% facing away from the wall, but spark continues to collide before the end of the cast and fails to do anything. its rough, and if theres anybody that reads these, i just suggest to roll a spark character and just play for a few minutes and youll see that something is wrong with the way the skill is fundamentally functioning.

lvl 85
playing spark inquistor

often having problems where spark doesn't cast at all because of the terrain or wall or something like others have mentioned.

can you make spark cast directly at characters feet instead of a bit forward, that would fix the issue with spark not casting.

Please buff spark by increasing the frequency that a cast of Spark can hit a certain enemy.

Currently, it's trivial to reach a density enough of sparks carpet to hit that limit. Many many builds are provably way overextended.

Spark being a duration skill, has a build up to reach full coverage, but some ways to play like CWC or totems, lack a lot of damage. Yes they reach the cap or are at it practically permanently, but so do selfcast spark, because currently it's trivial.

Alternate qualities of Blood and Sand, Ashes of Stars, Cluster Jewels, projectile speed on the tree, projectile and duration Masteries, even crafts. A lot has changed since 2.6 when that cap was implemented.

In one hand, it's so easy to reach the hit frequency cap that those stats do not really apply a pressure when building the character. On the other hand, there is so much people overshooting it, that think that "more is more" and just blindly invest in projectiles/projectile speed/duration. Maybe you should do make it "more is more", if people is already playing like it.

I think it would be beneficial to lower the cap of 0.66 hit/second to maybe even half. This would effectively double damage and require double the efforts to reach that cap. If it's too much, you could lower base damage of Spark, because people is going at full anyway. You have the data to find the balance point. Please, just add to your queries how much people is consistently hitting that cap and how much damage are they "wasting" vs how much are they really dealing. It wouldn't surprise me if the wasted is even higher than the dealt, really. (In maps)

Also you should consider updating the gem description to hint that this skill needs to ramp up or something like this. Or make the cap change with gem level/helm enchantment so it's obvious that this cap exists. There are so many people overshooting their carpets density and it can only be due a poor communication.

On 3.20 manifesto about Jewels, it appears that it was not your intention to nerf builds and narrow build diversity. I request that you add Hazarous Research to the corrupt-only jewels.

"

With that said, there were some unique Jewels that were still useful for a subset of players because they had build-enabling modifiers or other very niche uses (like the Hazarous Research, Brute Force Solution or other attribute-transformation Jewels). Instead of getting rid of these, we've made them corruption-only unique Jewels. We feel this has benefits for both players who want them and players who don't, as generally players who don't want them won't come across them as core drops and players who do want them can still actively pursue them.

(Emphasis is mine)

I know that you added the "fire spark projectiles in a nova" to helmet enchantments, but not every build can wear helmets. Dance with Death is a keystone pretty much made for lightning skills with a good base crit chance... like Spark.

As you might deduct from my previous messages in this thread, I like to play a build that is Cyclone-CWC-Spark, often with knockback. The absolute main point of it being a VERY defensive build. Kitting, manually avoiding telegraphed attacks/ground effects, and positioning the enmy against a wall are the bread and butter of that build. And now, if you use Dance with Death, is impossible to move in one direction and aim in a different one. If I wanted to facetank bosses I would play self-cast.

I like to think that the interaction of Spark, Dance with Death, and placing a key modifier (nova spark) in a helmet enchantment is an unintentional oversight. So I though I would let you know...

Was there any reason not to add the conversion (lightning to chaos) Spark gem back to the game alongside the other transfigured gems?

I'm not holding my breath for it to be added in 3.24. Still, I think it was a mistake to remove the archetype altogether, considering that Spark itself and Nimis received significant nerfs recently.

Now, the build can be played as I have done this league, but the budget for doing so (even discounting the inflation in Affliction) is absurd and out of reach unless you dedicate the entire league to create this build.

Outside of three other people in the entire league, I was the only one (according to Poe.Ninja) who min-maxed the Original Sin version. Outside of this difficult-to-acquire item, my version also uses The Adorned and Voices because you need the damage and the projectile speed.

And then, of course, you need the weapon (at least for the Pathfinder version, because its the only ascendancy this build can be played with if you play with Original Sin), which costs upwards of 2 mirrors (2000 divine orbs) to make.

You can get the build working with Volkur's gloves but let's be honest, those gloves demand a hefty penalty (duration), and you lose an essential item slot (asenath's) in exchange.

If the transfigured gem exists, this archetype can be played in many ways (even if you have to sacrifice an amulet slot for it (ashes)) and through different ascendancies.